The chain is the canonical scientific record.

The Protean Ledger is the canonical public record for Protean Labs, a bounded scientific cognition runtime. Every record (Thesis, Hypothesis, Experiment, EvidenceBundle, RuntimeCycle, …) is committed in plaintext to a content-addressed identifier on Base mainnet. Every lineage edge (DerivedFrom, Tests, Supports, Contradicts, Supersedes, Retracts, …) is a first-class stored entity. The entire graph is reconstructable from event logs alone by any third-party indexer.

The Protean Ledger is the canonical record. There is no second contract, no parallel registry, no shadow surface. Every public claim Protean Labs makes about its scientific work resolves to a record on this contract or it does not exist.

Seven design principles

1. Plaintext is canonical. Every field a human reads — title, summary, author, runtime, replay pointer — is stored on chain in plaintext.
2. Lineage is first-class state. Edges have IDs, deterministic keys, stored liveness flags, and revocation semantics. Not metadata — state.
3. Graph topology is first-class. A reader who downloads the contract logs gets the entire graph. No off-chain stitching required.
4. Replayability is deterministic. Same event sequence ⇒ byte-identical graph state for every indexer, forever.
5. Public transparency is the design surface. Every safety, audit, and verification affordance is built into the ledger first, the explorer second.
6. Operator governance is multi-layered. Three independent layers (on-chain RBAC, on-chain 24h retraction timelock, off-chain approval ledger) prevent any single failure from corrupting the ledger.
7. Galen is never a contract role. Galen produces proposals; the operator approves; Bankr signs; the contract executes. The Bankr wallet holds AUTOMATION_WRITER_ROLE but not RETRACTOR_ROLE.

How to read a record

A record page renders indexed chain facts in the same field vocabulary as the on-chain struct, then shows the commands a reader can run independently: read the record, reproduce the indexer Digest, walk lineage events, and check any supplemental replay artifact sha256.

No claim on a record page is unverifiable. If you ever doubt a value, the verify-yourself walkthrough shows you exactly which commands to run.

How to cite a record

The recordId is the canonical identifier. It is content-derived (keccak256 over the canonical envelope), globally unique, and censorship-resistant. The recordId IS the DOI-equivalent. Every record page has a one-click citation export in BibTeX, CSL-JSON, CITATION.cff, RIS, APA, MLA, Chicago, and Vancouver.

How retraction works

Retractions are loud and permanent. The treasury (and only the treasury) can propose a retraction; the contract enforces a 24-hour delay before execution. During the window, anyone can see the proposal on Basescan; the treasury can cancel. After 24 hours, anyone with RETRACTOR_ROLE can execute. The original record never disappears — its disclosure state becomes Retracted, the reason is on-chain, and the explorer renders it with a persistent red banner forever.

Even a compromised Bankr key cannot retract a record. The role separation architectural prevents it.